Posts

Featured post

DUSK Solstice Shorts Festival 2017

Image
DUSK: Solstice Shorts 2017 Originating in Greenwich, on the Prime Meridian, and now in its 4th year, Solstice Shorts is  going  nationwide. The theme this year is Dusk, that time between day and night when everything changes. On  21st December Dusk  starts in the UK in the  far  NE (Shetland) at  16:53  and finishes in the far SW (Cornwall) at  18:21 , taking between 40 and 50 minutes depending where you are. We have  twelve sites across the UK  all reading/singing  different  material (chosen by us, read by actors/ sung by musicians) starting In  Ellon, Aberdeenshire  and ending In  Redruth, Cornwall , taking in key spots in between. All events BSL Interpreted Tickets : Generally by donation, suggested £3, but there are exceptions where this is part of a bigger event. The performances will match the timing of (Astronomical) Dusk exactly, with a  live stream  on Facebook.  Redruth won’t start reading until Aberdeen had almost finished and all the other performance
Post a Comment
Read more

New Writing Scotland 35 'She Said He Said I Said'

Image
I was delighted to be one of the writers invited to read at the launch of ' New Writing Scotland' 35 , She Said He Said I Said held at Blackwell's Bookshop in Edinburgh last night. Unfortunately Viccy Adams wasn't able to attend but it was great to meet Bryan Johnstone, Rose McDonagh, Heather Parry and Harry Smart as well as one of the editors Susie Maguire and Duncan Jones from the Association of Scottish Literary Studies. I read my poem Washerwomen on Calton Hill inspired by Thomas Begbie's wonderful photograph taken in 1887. The poem is written from the perspective of one of the washerwomen and how her feelings about the photographer might have been changed by one or two imagined incidents. Washerwomen on Calton Hill Scunnered. Such a good day for drying clothes up on the hill, away from all the smoky lums and up he comes, wants us to pose on the slopes. The cheek of him, we were all in position, standing, kneeling and his box on legs all set up, when
Post a Comment
Read more

Echoes of the City podcast

Listen to Washerwomen On Calton Hill by Echoes of the City #np on #SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/user-969716163/washer-women-on-calton-hill The Echoes of the City project have just launched the project and here's the podcast I mentioned in my last post. It's always fascinating when another person reads one of my poems. Another voice can really change how the poem sounds and feels. I'm really delighted with how the reader of my poem, Natalie, seems to bring the words to life and takes me back to the original inspiration for the poem. I took the title of my poem from the Calotype taken by Thomas Begbie in 1887. The image can be viewed on the Capital Collections website https://capitalcollections.org.uk and search under 'Washerwomen on Calton Hill'.
Post a Comment
Read more

The art of waiting

I haven't written my blog for a while but have continued to write poems and last year I also signed up to an Open University Degree in English Literature and Creative Writing. I've almost completed the second year of a six year course, studied part time and funded by the Scottish Government. I will be 70 by the time I complete the course but who cares, it will feel like a real achievement and well worth waiting and working for! I'm also waiting to hear the outcome of my submission of 30 poems to a poetry publisher. I know that I'm on a short list for publication of a poetry pamphlet with this publisher, which feels exciting but though I'm a pretty patient person, waiting for a decision feels excruciating. However sometimes it pays to keep waiting. A poem that I wrote last summer has been accepted as a podcast for the Echoes of the City project in Edinburgh and for the forthcoming anthology of New Writing Scotland. Writing poetry feels like a positive activity
Post a Comment
Read more

Happy World Poetry Day

The medium is the message – the power of public poetry http://gu.com/p/4hk3t?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger
Post a Comment
Read more

New poem - Taken

This poem was written in response to a recent item on the BBC news website which described the death of a young dolphin in the USA as people flocked to take selfies with the poor creature... Taken It began as a dare, a stunt, a young dolphin trapped in a cowboy's net, its slipperiness handed round a harbour-side throng, its face pressed into theirs, to cries of go on, take one, but no-one in the instagram crowd noticed those dead prisoner's eyes or thought this is wrong and as its fight for life grew less and less each click a frame of death by the time the last person was offered a lifeless form they wondered what had happened and what they'd lost. Jane Aldous 2016
Post a Comment
Read more

Jackie Kay is the new Scots Makar

Jackie Kay announced as new Scots Makar - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-35810962
Post a Comment
Read more